City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

So how do you feel about "Grammar Elitist"

10100101

By 10100101,
Posted on: 2009-05-15 10:11 in Mission Architect

 

Posted

Thought this might make another good discussion.

So were do you stand on feedback from grammar Elitist?
I'm all for feedback, especially if it concerns things I can fix. But when you receive feedback on things like "I love your arc, but I had to give you a lower rating, because you spelled a Bosses name with a ' in it, or it should have been "Too", not To...
And how many times will you go back and fix minor details like that on a published arc? once, twice, 3 times?
Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there are atrocious arcs out there with horrible grammar, but if I like the story, I'm not gonna lower their rating due to a few spelling errors, but I'll give them feedback so they can fix it.
And if its minor things, I don't even bother.
Where do you stand on this?
And again, I just thought this might make a good discussion for this board

 

Posted

I would welcome it. We make our own worst proofreaders, and grammar is important.


<《 New Colchis / Guides / Mission Architect 》>
"At what point do we say, 'You're mucking with our myths'?" - Harlan Ellison

 

Posted

If the bad rating really bothers you, you could unpublish it to clear the rating, fix the error and then publish it again. Right?

 

Posted

I point out people's grammatical and spelling errors and typos when I catch them. I appreciate when people do the same for me, since there's always stuff you miss and if you go back in and edit dialogue the cursor does wonky things and you end up with random letters in weird places. I have had people thank me for pointing out stuff like that in feedback. However if I go to the trouble to point out all your spelling errors that means 1) you have few enough that I can point them all out and 2) you obviously cared enough about your arc to actually proofread, and I won't rate you lower because you missed something. If it's full of spelling and grammatical errors that shows me you just don't care, and I'll rate you lower.

Eva Destruction AR/Fire/Munitions Blaster
Darkfire Avenger DM/SD/Body Scrapper

Arc ID#161629 Freaks, Geeks, and Men in Black
Arc ID#431270 Until the End of the World

 

Posted

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I always give grammar feedback if I feel the arc will benefit from it, and I try to be as specific as possible (though sometimes it's difficult with the character limit on the feedback field).

But I don't always downrate for grammar issues. I used to be more of a perfectionist, being used to printed materials, but I reset my expectations after some experiences with typos and such getting into the MA due mainly to its weirdly laggy editing behavior.

Only if the grammar/spelling issues are enormously distracting do I actively downrate. I do up-rate for well-formed turns of phrase or clever voicing, but it's possible to earn a 5 from me without those in play.

And for a while things were cold,
They were scared down in their holes
The forest that once was green
Was colored black by those killing machines

 

Posted

the thing i find funny is my son made an arc on my account. he is 10 and his spelling grammar was bad as to be expected. I added in his description how old he is so they could target their feedback to him accordingly. yet there are still people who rate him a 2 or 3 and use spelling and grammar as the reason. so far he has 14 ratings for a average of a 3. and one complaint that he made a farm lol. some people have been helpfull to him with feedback. I wondered one day why he was asking me what a spellcheck was. then i seen where people had sent him a nasty message about his spelling.


Of course I could proof it for him but i think he learns better if he has to figure it out himself. That and he doesn't want me "messin up his arc"

 

Posted

The mission text is part of the arc. It sets the stage. So it should be graded on how well it does that.

 

Posted

I appreciate the feedback when something is pointed out to me, and try to point out ones I catch.

If its pure l33t and IM speak that I can't comprehend, thats a poor rating. A minor error or typo in an otherwise good arc would not cause me to rate it worse.


@Catwhoorg "Rule of Three - Finale" Arc# 1984
@Mr Falkland Islands"A Nation Goes Rogue" Arc# 2369 "Toasters and Pop Tarts" Arc#116617

 

Posted

Grammar will not affect my rating of a story, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to mention it in my review. I see college graduates writing on a fourth-grade level every day. If we don't try to correct people's grammar now, what will it be like in another twenty years? (It's all the Internet's fault, of course.)

 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
Thought this might make another good discussion.

So were do you stand on feedback from grammar Elitist?
I'm all for feedback, especially if it concerns things I can fix. But when you receive feedback on things like "I love your arc, but I had to give you a lower rating, because you spelled a Bosses name with a ' in it, or it should have been "Too", not To...
And how many times will you go back and fix minor details like that on a published arc? once, twice, 3 times?
Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there are atrocious arcs out there with horrible grammar, but if I like the story, I'm not gonna lower their rating due to a few spelling errors, but I'll give them feedback so they can fix it.
And if its minor things, I don't even bother.
Where do you stand on this?
And again, I just thought this might make a good discussion for this board

[/ QUOTE ]

You should work on your commas.

 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
And how many times will you go back and fix minor details like that on a published arc? once, twice, 3 times?

[/ QUOTE ]

When they're found and brought to my attention (which I appreciate), I go in and fix them. I've tweaked my currently published arc approximately eleventy bazillion times. Eleventy bazillion and one isn't going to bother me.

I, personally, will not downrate an arc just because of typos and grammatical errors. In my experience, arcs that are really bad in that regard tend to be really bad in other ways as well.

And when I say really bad, I don't mean just a lot of typos. Some great writers and storytellers have horrible, horrible spelling. I mean really bad in the sense that it's obviously all been written very carelessly. To me, that's a good sign that the whole arc is going to be poor.

I recognize that players have all sorts of standards on which they base their ratings, up to and including what I'd consider the very absurd (the cigar detail encourages our children to smoke! 1 star!). It's all valid and doesn't profit anyone anything by getting bent out of shape over it.

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Posted

off topic sorry to op but



[ QUOTE ]
Eleventy bazillion and one isn't going to bother me.

[/ QUOTE ]


Now that's hyperbole

 

Posted

I always welcome proofreading. However there are still a lot of weird bugs when you copy-paste that seems to screw me up as well. It will put words inside other words and gets all weird. Not to mention the numerous other typing bugs. Like typing in a word then it not showing up until you click on the text box and start typing again.

It's very fustrating.

 

Posted

I don't rate someone down for bad grammar unless they're [censored] the english language, but I'll send a "Hey, you missed this" kind of thing in my feedback if I see something obvious. Usually these are things like misspelled words or common sayings they've misheard.

I think I've hammered all the grammatical errors out of my main arc, but I appreciate when people can let me know if I've missed anything. This is mostly because it drives me crazy in other people's arcs, so I can't stand the thought of having errors in my own that I've missed.

Now what cracks me up is when someone tells me about something minor like a sentence fragment in someone's dialogue. Apparently it never occured to them that I might have done that on purpose to create a pattern of speech.

 

Posted

I try to send written comments on all the arcs I play, which is a lot these days.

Most times if I see a typo I will report it, but it never affects the star rating I give it.

But if the text is downright incomprehensible through syntax and grammar problems, to the point making even the mission objectives uncertain, then that would affect the rating.

I figure if I see the typo and report it, I'm already assisting in improving the arc. Why would I penalize it when I'm almost certain it will get fixed?

I'm trying to see this like I would a movie. Sometimes the language will get beaten up, but if the premice is interesting, I'll still enjoy it.

That said, I know some have rated my arcs lower because of spelling mistakes or that cursor positioning glitch.

That's the downside of the current subjective rating system. You could be using the wrong shade of red in your text, and a player could 1-star the arc for it and there's nothing one can do about it.

In other words: Try to not let it bother you. Maintaining a star average above 3 is quite an accomplishment under these circumstances.

█ Players Guide to the Cities

 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
If it's in dialogue, I just assume bad grammar is deliberate unless the author has presented the speaker as educated, and the grammatical lapse seems out of character. In that case, whether it's deliberate or not it's a problem.

[/ QUOTE ]

Oh, absolutely. If your contact is a professor of English at Princeton and he's droppin' lines from gangsta rap and myspace jargon, that's a problem.

Well, actually that could work, but it would take some finesse and would have to be for comedic effect, but you get my point.

 

Posted

Helping someone with grammar is always good so long as you aren't a big meanie head about it.

Infatum on Virtueverse

 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
Helping someone with grammar is always good so long as you aren't a big meanie head about it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Someone put this on a billboard.

Don't ever be offended when someone corrects your spelling, syntax, pronunciation or grammar. Just tell'em, "thank you" with a smile.

 

Posted

Well, if I think your arc just plain sucks, I'm generally not going to bother offering feedback. If I say anything it generally means that I think it's good but could be even better. Of course I have to remind myself to also say what I liked about it before going into paragraphs of little nitpicky things I didn't like.

Eva Destruction AR/Fire/Munitions Blaster
Darkfire Avenger DM/SD/Body Scrapper

Arc ID#161629 Freaks, Geeks, and Men in Black
Arc ID#431270 Until the End of the World

 

Posted

I thought this might be a good discussion, and so far it has been =).
And I want to add something, to just a few in the front that failed to read my whole post.
I "Love Feedback", and when people tell me that I have spelled something wrong I go and I fix it, I really do try to spell everything I can correctly, as well as have friends proof it for me before I publish it.
But when someone tells me they rated my arc lower because I had a Boss name spelled with a ' in it and it shouldn't be, as well as I had "to" instead of too, but they loved the story, I think that is going way overboard.

 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
I thought this might be a good discussion, and so far it has been =).
And I want to add something, to just a few in the front that failed to read my whole post.
I "Love Feedback", and when people tell me that I have spelled something wrong I go and I fix it, I really do try to spell everything I can correctly, as well as have friends proof it for me before I publish it.
But when someone tells me they rated my arc lower because I had a Boss name spelled with a ' in it and it shouldn't be, as well as I had "to" instead of too, but they loved the story, I think that is going way overboard.

[/ QUOTE ]

You're asking for criticism on the internet.

What, exactly, did you expect?

My advice: Don't care about the ratings and be thankful for the help.

 

Posted

I am glad when someone points out a spelling error in my arc, I thank them for it. I'll edit it as many times as necessary to get it right.

If there are only a few minor errors in an arc I won't down rate it, obviously the person took the time to work on it and just overlooked something. No big deal.

On the other hand, if it looks like a 10 year old wrote it without a spell check (even if one did) I will. Daddy should help him use spell check. When someone publishes, they are saying "This is ready to be played and is good." If it isn't, regardless of the reason, it should be rated accordingly. The MA is there for players to publish... and for other players to find arcs they like. The ratings are a reference, not a feel good "everyone passes" system.

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Posted

[ QUOTE ]
But when someone tells me they rated my arc lower because I had a Boss name spelled with a ' in it and it shouldn't be, as well as I had "to" instead of too, but they loved the story, I think that is going way overboard.

[/ QUOTE ]

So?

All's fair in love and war... and in the MA ratings system.

You can be given a low rating for things far more "overboard" than a spelling error. On the other hand, you can be given a high rating due to nothing more than the player's whim.

I've given high ratings to arcs that made me laugh. Mind you, it wasn't the author's intent to make me laugh, I'm sure. But I did just the same. I like to laugh. I had fun doing the arc. 5 stars.

I've also given high ratings to arcs that were "bad" but were obviously a labor of love and probably created by a kid who thinks their arc is TOTAL AWESOMESAUCE.

Everyone's criteria for rating is different, and it's all valid. No sense getting bent over it. And if you actually got a play and feedback--particularly feedback that allows you to improve your arc, even in a minor way--I'd say that's all to the good.

The Cape Radio: You're not super until you put on the Cape!
DJ Enigma's Puzzle Factory: Co* Parody Commercials